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South Africa: Public Must Protect Their Intellectual Property
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BuaNews (Tshwane)
21 September 2007
Posted to the web 21 September 2007
Shaun Benton
Tshwane
The Innovation Fund has launched a campaign to assist South Africans patent research findings and ideas that could be translated into viable business opportunities.
The Innovation Fund is an instrument of the Department of Science and Technology (DST). Researchers at publicly-funded institutions in particular are being helped by the Fund's Intellectual Property Management, to patent viable research findings. This is part of the DST's efforts to make South Africa a player in the knowledge-driven global economy.
South Africa currently has a very low patenting rate, and one which has remained stagnant since 1998, while about 50 percent of patent applications filed in South Africa emanate from abroad, says Maclean Sibanda, a senior patent attorney with the Innovation Fund.
Speaking to a range of individuals from research institutions and the private sector invited by the Innovation Fund to a breakfast on Friday morning, Mr Sibanda said there are about 10 000 to 11 000 patent applications filed through the South African Patent Office each year. However, these numbers have remained stagnant, while comparative figures in countries with similar GDP levels to South Africa, such as Korea, have shown far higher growth. This is despite the fact that it is often easier for locals to file patents, he added.
Mr Sibanda emphasised in his address that it is important for researchers and inventors - and artists, musicians and writers - to consider patenting their ideas before publishing them. "Patent, and then publish," he said, adding that if managed effectively, the two processes could run in parallel. "Researchers need to appreciate the fact that the protection of their intellectual property should precede publication," Mr Sibanda said. "Researchers and innovators have a right to participate in, gain recognition for, and benefit from, the commercialisation of their work," he added.
South Africans need to wake up to the right to intellectual property - which he defined as a "negative right" that precludes others from imitating one's personal creation - as the country moves into the knowledge economy phase, he said. One result of failure to patent is that foreigners could do so, which would preclude South Africans from owning a particular concept that could be rendered into a tangible commodity.
This would raise the possibility of any add-on inventions being produced under licence, which would see money moving offshore and not retained for onward investment by the local economy. Government, through instruments such as the National Research Foundation and the Innovation Fund - set up in 1999 to catalyse technology innovation - is now providing broad support to South Africans to patent original and creative ideas. These must however be accompanied by business plans and should display intellectual property "that is relevant and aligned with national priorities", Mr Sibanda said.
The chief executive of the National Research Fund, Dr Eugene Lottering, said that "at this point, there is unlimited funding available" to support patent applications by South Africans. Local patents are seen has having wide potential for a powerful role in the country's economic development, with government wishing to push the country further up the list of countries ranked in terms of technological achievement. Currently, according to the Innovation Fund, South Africa ranks only 39th out of 162 countries in terms of technological achievement - according to a United Nations report - with South Africa currently seen largely as an adopter of technology, rather than as an innovator.
However, spending on research and development in South Africa has grown considerably over the past few years, now standing at R10,1 billion per year if one includes spending by the public and the private sectors. An in-depth analysis of the patent landscape has been performed by Mr Sibanda, who heads the Intellectual Property Management Office.
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Findings from this study were published in a book, The State of Patenting in South Africa, which was launched also on Friday as the patenting campaign by the Innovation Fund kicked off.
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